Friday, June 14, 2013

"Mayhem" by Sarah Pinborough

A
new killer is stalking the streets of London’s East End. Though newspapers have
dubbed him ‘the Torso Killer’, this murderer’s work is overshadowed by the
hysteria surrounding Jack the Ripper’s Whitechapel crimes.

The
victims are women too, but their dismembered bodies, wrapped in rags and tied
up with string, are pulled out of the Thames – and the heads are missing. The
murderer likes to keep them.

Mayhem
is a masterwork of narrative suspense: a supernatural thriller set in a
shadowy, gaslit London, where monsters stalk the cobbled streets and hide in
plain sight.

Jack the Ripper. The most notorious unidentified
serial killer of the world. Rivers of ink have and will continue to flow in the
wake of this murderer and the legend behind the mysterious figure will continue
to inspire plenty of non-fiction and fiction books. “Mayhem”, the latest novel signed by Sarah Pinborough, is one the books taking places in set in the
times of the Whitechapel murders and around Jack the Ripper’s crimes.

However, “Mayhem” might be set in a London terrorized
by Jack the Ripper and its story develops at the time of these murders, but its
focal point is not this series of crimes. Instead, Sarah Pinborough’s novel has
as starting point another unsolved crime of that time, one less known, at least
for me, the Whitehall Mystery. In 1888 on the basement of the construction site
of Metropolitan Police headquarters a headless torso of a woman was discover,
followed by one of the legs on the same location and an arm in the river
Thames. With the discovery of another headless and legless torso in Pinchin
Street on September 1889 it is possible that a different serial killer, dubbed
the “Torso killer”, may have been stalked the area at the same time as Jack the
Ripper. “Mayhem” assumes that the “Torso killer” and Jack the Ripper are
different persons and goes in search of the former.

It is only laudable that Sarah Pinborough brings into
the attention of the reader one of the parallel cases investigated by the police
at the time of Jack the Ripper, because after all it was not the only event
happening in the late years of the Victorian era. Even more so when East End
London faced an overcrowding of population with the increased number of
immigrants and refugees inhabiting the area. The atmosphere of the time is
captured to perfection by Sarah Pinborough in “Mayhem”. A dark, choking and
oppressive atmosphere is a constant presence in the pages of the novel.
Combined with the omnipresent threat of brutal violence and a touch of
supernatural the setting is so vigorous that leaves the reader grateful for
experiencing it from behind the protective wall of fiction and at the safe distance
offered by time and space. The feeling of authenticity is increased through the
insertion of true reports from the newspapers of the period, but also of a real
letter written by Thomas Bond giving his opinion on the Whitechapel murders.

Besides succeeding in the recreation of London of the
1880s final years “Mayhem” manages to give convincing voices to some of the
historical figures involved in the investigation of the Whitechapel murders and
the Whitehall mystery. Even to one of the presumed victims of the “Torso
killer”. The Detective Inspectors Henry Moore and Walter Andrews, indirectly in his case, tell part of
the story, Elizabeth Jackson offers one of the early images of the killer, but
most of all Doctor Thomas Bond gets the central stage. Thomas Bond is the only
character who tells the story from the first person perspective and while the
other historical figures of the story might not follow the same train of
thought as the doctor they give the reader the possibility to see his character
from other perspectives than his own, while at the same time bring the
necessary approach to the Jack the Ripper’s murders. The entirely fictional
characters make the story whole and help the conclusion reaching its natural
course. Aaron Kosminski and the mysterious man in the long black coat become
Thomas Bond’s allies, the three of them forming an unlikely team but with the
same goal. It is here that the ability of Sarah Pinborough to create such believable
characters makes itself fully present, because although part of an alliance,
they do not seem to belong together in any moment due to social status, destiny
and beliefs.

The story of “Mayhem” doesn’t concentrate on the
police procedures or crime investigations. Instead it is the story of a man in
search of truth, a man becoming obsessed with finding it to the point of
self-destruction. Narrated beautifully, the story grows naturally, without in
the least being forced or pushed. And even the identity of the killer is
revealed halfway through the novel the story doesn’t fall on the predictable
course leading to the catch of the murderer. Instead, the supernatural elements
are carefully introduced and knitted together with the other aspects of the
tale. The background is built, without sacrificing the pace, for the plot to be
better sustained. And in the end, with a masterful strike, the blame is not
thrown entirely on the real or the supernatural aspects, both having plenty to
account for.

Sarah
Pinborough strays from the beaten paths to give her latest novel
originality and although “Mayhem” is
a dark story, as dark as Sarah
Pinborough used us with, it is also a gripping one, certain to win its
unique place in the hearts and minds of the readers.